Thursday, November 5, 2015

The Linux Foundation is launching an Open API Initiative to extend the Swagger specification, which is a description format used by developers to design and deliver APIs that support a range of connected applications and services. Smart bear is making the initial contributions to the Open API. Founding members of the initiative include 3Scale, Apigee, Capital One, Google, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, PayPal and Restlet.

The goal of the initiative is to extend the Swagger specification and format to create an open technical community within which members can easily contribute to building a vendor neutral, portable and open specification for providing metadata for RESTful APIs. This open specification will allow both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the respective services with a minimal amount of implementation logic. The Initiative will also promote and facilitate the adoption and use of an open API standard.

“Swagger is considered one of the most popular frameworks for building APIs. When an open source project reaches this level of maturity, it just can’t be managed by one company, organization or developer,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “The Open API Initiative will extend this technology to advance connected application development through open standards.”

Swagger was created in 2010 and offered under an open source license a year later.

Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that its residential multi-standard small cell devices have commenced commercial deployment.

The units, which were developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and use a single chipset to support both 3G and LTE, will allow operators to extend superior 3G and 4G LTE connectivity and coverage into homes, substantially enhancing the in-home voice and data wireless experience via mobile devices.

The Alcatel-Lucent 9961 Multi-Standard Home Cell (MSHC) voice (VoLTE) and LTE data services while also providing support for 3G-based devices.

T-Mobile is introducing a residential small cell for providing LTE coverage inside a home.

The T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot delivers a 4G LTE signal for customers with or without an indoor cellular signal on compatible 3G, 4G and LTE handsets for up to 16 callers at one time anywhere a customer has broadband Internet and T-Mobile wireless spectrum. The customer must provide the location address and acknowledge 9-1-1 limitations. The device is free for customers on T-Mobile's Simple Choice plan.

“Where the T-Mobile Wi-Fi CellSpot’s like a T-Mobile tower, this new 4G LTE CellSpot is a T-Mobile mini-tower—and it’s a huge feat of engineering,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “The big difference between us and the carriers is that they’ll do absolutely everything they can to bleed you dry. We’ll do absolutely everything we can and use every proven technology available to give you the best coverage possible.”

CenturyLink has retained financial advisors to assist in the exploration of strategic alternatives for its data centers and colocation business operations.

CenturyLink has 59 data centers in North America, Asia and Europe with more than 185 megawatts of power across 2.6 million square feet of raised floor capacity. The review of strategic alternatives will involve a full range of options including, but not limited to, a partnership or joint venture, a sale of all or a portion of the data centers, as well as keeping some or all of these assets and operations as part of CenturyLink's portfolio.

"We are confident in our strategy of combining enhanced network and hosting capabilities with a suite of related managed services offerings for our customers. We expect colocation services to remain part of our service offerings, but we do not believe ownership of the physical data center assets is necessary to effectively deliver those services. Therefore, we are exploring all of the strategic alternatives available for our data centers. We have not set a timetable for completion of this process and will take the time necessary to ensure we best position CenturyLink and deliver value to our shareholders, while remaining focused on providing our colocation customers excellent service," stated Glen F. Post III, chief executive officer and president.

In its quarterly financial statement, CenturyLink stated that revenue from high-bandwidth data services provided to business customers, including MPLS, Ethernet and Wavelength, grew more than 7% year-over-year. Strategic business revenues were $1.56 billion in the quarter, a 2.1% decrease from third quarter 2014, primarily due to continued declines in low-bandwidth data and hosting services.

Telefonica Business Solutions, in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent's Nuage Networks division, has completed evaluation and testing surrounding service chaining of virtualized network functions (NFV) in a multi-vendor SDN environment.

Specifically, Telefonica Business Solutions executed the proof of concept evaluation with Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) working with Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 Service Router (SR) and Virtualized Service Router. The companies also demonstrated seamless integration with Telefonica's existing third-party IP Edge Routing platforms in the roles of Datacenter Gateway and Datacenter Provider Edge, including integration between the automated value-added applications in the Datacenter and WAN connectivity services. The hybrid solution will provide Telefonica's enterprise customers the flexibility to make use of automated value-added services together with the optimal WAN service depending on needs for bandwidth, control, cost and quality of service.

Nuage Networks VSP provides the automated overlay networking for Telefonica's existing VMware virtualization environment as well as a test environment based on OpenStack and the open source Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor.

Arista Networks reported Q3 revenue of $217.5 million, an increase of 40% compared to the third quarter of 2014, and an increase of 11% from the second quarter of 2015.
Gross margin (GAAP) came in at 65.2%, compared to GAAP gross margin of 64.9% in the third quarter of 2014 and 65.4% in the second quarter of 2015. GAAP net income was $28.7 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $21.9 million, or $0.30 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2014.

"Arista is witnessing the mainstream acceptance of open and programmable cloud networking across the globe,” stated Jayshree Ullal, Arista President and CEO. “I am delighted by our customer traction across four major verticals and our consistent profitable revenue growth."

Cask Data, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, raised $20 million in Series B funding for its enterprise-class Apache Hadoop solutions.

Cask's flagship offering, the Cask Data Application Platform ("CDAP"), provides an open source layer on top of the Hadoop ecosystem that adds enterprise-class governance, portability, security, scalability and transactional consistency. From Data Lakes to Data Apps, the CDAP platform is ideal for enterprise environments because it abstracts many layers of the Hadoop ecosystem, allowing developers to use their existing skills to build high-performance, large-scale Big Data applications. The company said its approach dramatically accelerates development of applications and deployment into production, cutting average time to implement by more than 80%, while retaining the operational controls required by today's enterprise customers. Major customers and partners include AT&T, Cloudera, Salesforce, Pet360 and Lotame.

The funding was led by Safeguard Scientifics with participation from Battery Ventures, Ignition Partners and other existing investors

"Big data has moved into the mainstream, but enterprises continue to struggle with the complexities and new skill sets required in the Hadoop ecosystem," said Cask Founder and CEO, Jonathan Gray. "Because our platform can layer on top of any distribution, instantly integrate with new and existing data stores, and easily support both Spark or MapReduce, it delivers real value for enterprises in a data-heavy environment, slashing development and deployment timelines. We are excited to be a part of the Safeguard family of partner companies. This financing, along with the operational expertise and guidance from our new board members Phil and Frank, will allow us to take Cask to the next level."

GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced a development milestone in its path to 14nm FinFET process technology. AMD has taped out multiple products using GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 14nm Low Power Plus (14LPP) process technology and is currently conducting validation work on 14LPP production samples.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES now anticipates its 14LPP process technology will reach high-volume production in 2016. The 14LPP platform taps the benefits of three-dimensional, fully-depleted FinFET transistors to enable customers like AMD to deliver more processing power in a smaller footprint for applications that demand the ultimate in performance.

“Our 14nm FinFET technology is among the most advanced in the industry, offering an ideal solution for demanding high-volume, high-performance, and power-efficient designs with the best die size,” said Mike Cadigan, senior vice president of product management at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. “Through our close design-technology partnership with AMD, we can help them deliver products with a performance boost over 28nm technology, while maintaining a superior power footprint and providing a true cost advantage due to significant area scaling.”

Jo Lunder, the former CEO of VimpleCom, was arrested in Oslo, Norway as part of an investigation into the company's business practices in Uzbekistan.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Dutch authorities have previously alleged that VimpelCom paid millions of dollars in bribes to a company controlled by the daughter of the president of Uzbekistan.
Earlier this week, VimpelCom announced that it had reserved $900 million for litigation costs in connection with the U.S. and Dutch investigations.

Separately, a law firm in Delaware filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all persons or entities that purchased the securities of VimpelCom between June 30, 2011 and November 2, 2015.

ZTE has opened a new Research and Development Center in Tokyo to focus on the development of 5G and other next-generation network technologies. This brings the number of ZTE R&D centers to 20 worldwide.

The opening ceremony for the new R&D center was officiated by senior executives including Shi Lirong, President and Chief Executive Officer of ZTE, Zhang Renjun, Senior Vice President of ZTE, and Zhang Shumin, Head of ZTE Mobile Devices in Asia Pacific.

“ZTE’s world-class research on 5G technology will be further strengthened by the new R&D center in Japan,” Mr. Shi said. “Japan is home to many of ZTE’s most important customers, and we will continue to increase our investment in this key market. The new R&D center will enable ZTE to recruit top local talents to join in our research on next-generation technologies.”

ZTE has signed a new worldwide 3G/4G license agreement with Qualcomm. Under the deal, Qualcomm has granted ZTE royalty-bearing patent licenses to develop, manufacture, and sell 3G and 4G products, such as smartphones, modules, and infrastructure equipment, including 3-mode (LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA and GSM) smartphones sold for use in China.

The license includes terms that are consistent with the rectification measures that Qualcomm submitted to China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in February 2015.

“Qualcomm is pleased to again have reached an agreement with ZTE that reflects the established value of Qualcomm’s patent portfolio, supports future collaboration between Qualcomm and ZTE, and strengthens the relationship between the companies,” said Eric Reifschneider, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Qualcomm Technology Licensing. “This agreement with ZTE is another important step for our licensing business in China, and we look forward to continuing our progress in concluding agreements with Chinese device companies.”